marsh

On the hottest summer days, Chesapeake marshes come alive with the sound of a million droning insects and the chittering of small birds foraging on the wild rice. For all the commotion, it is remarkably serene. Fish jump, startled frogs chirp and splash, and if you’re really lucky, a river otter curiously harumphs at you before it glides away.

There are many beautiful places in the world, but none are beautiful in this same way— a symphony of water and wind, fiercely alive.

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Some see the return of the osprey as the herald of spring in the Chesapeake. For others,  it’s the arrival of another beautiful bird- the wood duck. Wood duck boxes like the one above have been constructed in wooded marsh habitat throughout the Bay’s tributaries. Simple but sturdy, they’ll be home to these gorgeous waterfowl for a few seasons while they mate, lay eggs, and rear their young.

Wood ducks are visually arresting. Their latin name, aix sponsa, translates to “waterfowl in a wedding dress”- a clear reference to their show-stopping feathers.  That distinctive plumage, however, made them a target in the 1900′s when hunters sought them as gorgeous trophies and welcome additions to the cookpot. Harvested to the brink of extinction, wood ducks were saved by hunting regulations and a popular wood duck box initiative. Homeowners participated by creating new habitat for the gaudy birds using the program’s materials and placing them in wooded marshes throughout the Bay.

The initiative has been a success story, and the wood duck’s populations are now stable. Every year as spring arrives, so too do thousands of the quick, low-flying waterfowl. They take to the wooded swamps, the tannin-rich pools reflecting their dazzling display— a reward for another winter concluded, a reminder of renewal,  and a sign of the enduring beauty of the Chesapeake Bay.

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This morning, many Chesapeake residents woke up to a rare and beautiful winter gift— hoarfrost. Essentially a frozen mist, thin ice particles coated everything from cattails to brambles, transforming a stark landscape into a glittery spectacle. Fox tracks laced through the coated marsh where glassine flakes gently blew away. After a long, punishing winter, the delicate, fleeting frost was almost like an apology. By 10 am, it was gone.

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Scenes from a Chesapeake island refuge in winter— short days mean long shadows, and an easily-lost distinction between water and land, past and present. Ringing high over the still water is the mournful calls of tundra swans, overwintering in the ice-sheeted coves. The ghostly tufts of cattail and phragmite catch the last light, will o’ wisps of summer’s green lushness.

An Island, Recreated

Poplar and Jefferson Island, looking south. Photo ca. 1935 by H. Robins Hollyday, courtesy of Talbot County Historical Society.

Polar Island ca. 2008. Photo by Hunter H. Harris.

Over the centuries, many of the Bay’s islands have completely disappeared, washed away by wind and tide. During the period between these two photographs, Poplar Island nearly became one of them.

In the 1930’s, you can see the lee shore of the island scattered with the last of the island’s trees, which fell as the sand and soil washed out from under them. During that period, some prominent Democrats bought Jefferson and Poplar Islands and established the Jefferson Islands Club as a place for men honoring Jeffersonian ideals, “where the humdrum of party politics might be broken now and then by communion with the great outdoors.” Between then and 1946 when the clubhouse on Jefferson Island burned down, the islands were host to Franklin D. Roosevelet, Harry S. Truman, and innumerable Democratic congressmen, businessmen, and military generals.

Rep. Sam Rayburn, House Majority Leader, Secretary of War Woodring, Secretary of State Cordell Hull, Speaker of the House Bankhead, and Secretary of Agriculture Wallace leaving Annapolis for the Jefferson Island Democratic Club on June 25, 1937. Photo courtesy of the Library of Congress collections.

Even as the clubhouse hummed with international leaders, the island was washing away. During storms, whole acres were lost to the relentless waves. Like many islands throughout the Chesapeake, it seemed fated to wash completely away, until Poplar Island became the focus of a stunning public works project. The US Army Corps of Engineers needed a place to put the millions of yards of clean fill dredged up from the shipping channel approaching Baltimore Harbor and carrying it across the Bay by barge to reconstruct the island. Poplar Island became the repository, and so was saved from inundation.

Double-crested cormorant colony on Poplar Island. Photo courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Program.

By 2016, everything behind the retaining dikes built to define the island will be filled in, but that doesn’t mean that Poplar Island isn’t already being put to good use. Today, the rebuilt island is a nature preserve and bird refuge, teeming with life in its abundant marsh grasses. Once again, Poplar Island is an important gathering spot- only, its modern visitors sport feathers instead of straw boaters and neckties and spend their time making nests rather than brokering deals.

Aerial of Poplar Island, courtesy of the Chesapeake Bay Program.